just went through this whole thread, thanks for posting everyone i've been wondering if it was still around as i use to look at it quite a few years ago. it's a shame it's not as popular as it was then. where does everyone find all these images in the first place?

“Lab Coat Flora” is a hand stitched lab coat whitework embroidered with images of the bacteria and moulds cultured from it.

Around the time of the enlightenment the perversely difficult practice of whitework embroidery was considered to be one of the highest levels of achievement for a woman. They would sew in the evenings by candlelight straining their eyes to see the tiny stitches, hunched over their embroidery hoops, their bodies twisted and constricted by tight corsetry, one pinprick of blood meaning the whole piece would be ruined. This coincided with the period in which many of their male counterparts started to become ‘gentleman scientists’ beginning to rigorously study the world around them ‘scientifically’. This was the time when the scientific method was developed and disciplinary boundaries were drawn between art and science. By juxtaposing whitework embroidery with her scientific practice Dumitriu considers these paradigmatic changes in the process of research and current moves towards transdisciplinarity, alongside a consideration of what ‘feminine’ approaches to science might mean.